Catheters for draining the bladder are increasingly used for intermittent as well as indwelling or permanent catheterisation. Typically catheters are used by patients suffering from urinary incontinence or by disabled individuals like para- or tetraplegics who may have no control permitting voluntary urination and for whom catheterisation may be the way of urinating.
Catheterisation is thus increasingly becoming a daily-life procedure significantly improving quality of life for a large group of patients.
Typically, catheters are designed for one-time use and accordingly the costs for producing, packing and sterilising a catheter is an important issue. Existing catheters are made from a single piece of a continuous catheter tube. Typically, the thickness of the catheter tube is constant throughout its length.
The length of the catheter enables insertion of a certain length into the urethra until urine starts to flow. At this point, a certain over-length of the catheter should be available. The over-length supports for the user to firmly hold the catheter and to guide the urine to a place of disposal and to withdraw the catheter safely and without any risk of the catheter disappearing into the urethra.
Existing catheters are designed to minimise the risk of sores in the mucous membrane and to give substantially no sensation of pain during insertion. Accordingly known catheters are typically provided with a smooth and slippery surface optimised for safe and comfortable insertion into the urethra. Therefore, it may often be difficult, not least for the disabled user, to handle the catheter by manipulation of the slippery over-length.
It is important that the tubular member does not collapse or kink and thereby blocks the passage for the urine to drain through the catheter. Existing catheters are therefore typically made from a form stabile and relatively hard but still bendable tube e.g. made from PVC, PU or PE. Since the hardness of the tubes is selected relatively high with the view to avoid kinking, the catheters may collapse if they are bend with a too small radius of curvature.
Accordingly, existing catheters not only have a considerable length but they are also typically packed in an elongate condition. Therefore the existing catheters may be troublesome to handle and to bring along, not least for the individuals for whom catheterisation is a daily-life procedure, wherein catheterisation takes place several times a day and wherein the used catheters must be disposed via the garbage collection.